Human
by Jaybie Jarrett
Summary: When the ecto-dejecto makes Danielle ill, she is found by the SVU. Their investigation leads to a complicated case which begs a hard question. What is the measure of 'human? On HIATUS
1. Chapter 1

Human

A Danny Phantom/Law and Order SVU crossover

By Jaybie Jarrett

Summary: When the ecto-dejecto makes Danielle ill, she is found by the SVU. Their investigation leads to a complicated case which begs a hard question. What is the measure of 'human'?

Prologue

Once she flew off, Danielle Fenton felt better than she ever had in her whole life. The breeze felt better, the air freer and she even thought the grungy downtown apartments of Elmerton would be like a five star hotel. But who said she would even have to go back there? Now that she wasn't under threat of destabilization, she could go anywhere. She was free.

Dani spread her hands out as she flew on past the billboard bordering Amity Park. She did twirls and loop-de-loops over the New Jersey borderline. A few people looked up for a moment, swearing they saw a girl that looked just like the ghost boy. For the people who caught her, she did a cartwheel. Deep down she knew it was careless but what harm would it do, really? Dani started thinking about what she wanted to do from here. 'Maybe see the world' she thought, 'check out Cape Canaveral'. As a ghost she could travel quickly and invisibly, and as child she could probably slip into a crowd. With her powers she could now defend herself against…well just about anything. She started to feel a little dizzy and calmed down with the tricks.

But the dizziness didn't go away. 'It'll just take time' Dani told herself. In five minutes, she still felt dizzy and her head hurt a little. She slowed down and looked for a place she could stay for a night. She couldn't make out the signs below her. "That must be it" Dani thought, "I'm probably flying too high." So she flew down lower, to the top of a building. She landed on the building and took moment to rest. She imagined what Danny would say "you've got to be more careful, Danielle. You just nearly died, take it easy"

Right, take it easy. Dani pushed herself up on her feet, slowly. She was shaking and felt unsteady on her feet. The scene in front of her was blurry but she could just make out a motel, maybe, a couple feet, or blocks. It was hard to tell. "This isn't right" she thought, and instinctively she looked down at her feet to check if she was melting. No, not melting, and she could feel none of the burning that forewarned it. She took a few steps and nearly tripped. Flying was easier. Besides she was on a building, this wasn't safe.

Dani took off again. Her control over her invisibility slipped a few times, as did intangibility. She hit tree branches and nearly smacked into signs. Her flying was no longer graceful but erratic. Unfortunately, the motel didn't seem to be getting any closer, if she could make it out at all. Her head hurt, and now her stomach hurt, but she was afraid of crash-landing or running into people. What was going on? She certainly wasn't in danger of melting, but this wasn't normal either. She made a clumsy turn at a deserted space, with the motel still in sight. Maybe.

This was safer. Now to gain control of speed. Dani slowed down and tried to inch closer to the ground. As she was getting close her body made a little sort of spasm. Much worse than the shaking. Not good. Not good, not good not good. The one and a half year old ghost looked down at the ground miraculously having managed to get down to six feet away from it. The question was how to land. She was worried about flying more but nervous about walking and her control was slipping out of her grasp. She was like a little kid, going too fast on their first bike ride without training wheels. A little kid with the flu. Her body spasmed again and she felt something hot bubble up in her throat. She coughed up a ball of fizzling ectoplasm.

Now Dani was panicking completely. She fought to keep from crashing into the ground. Seeing it six feet below her was frightening, especially in this state. She coughed and released another fizzling gob of ectoplasm. Her sight blinked out for a few moments and she was losing control. With a feeble cry for help, she crashed into a bunch of bumpy, pointy objects. Her head was pounding and warm wet liquid trickled down the back of her neck. As she coughed more she heard the familiar sound of her transformation. Her surroundings were dark and unfamiliar. Everything slowly went dark and Dani managed to gasp something before slipping into unconsciousness.

"I just think that you might be blaming him for something he's not in control of"

"He's in complete control of it. If it weren't for him I wouldn't be carrying around people's garbage."

Two men in bright vests, lugging large black bags walked into the junkyard, carrying on a political argument. A larger, older man opened the bags and dumped them in a hole filled with junk while his partner went back to get more. The older man continued complaining about a 'socially intelligent moron' and shaking the bags.

"How much stuff do these people throw away?" He muttered. He heard a pained moan. "It's just garbage, if you don't like heavy lifting, get a new job."

"It didn't work, help me" This time the voice was coming from within the trash pile. The man froze. That didn't sound like a tape recorder, it wasn't muffled. He lifted the bag, moved around a few things until he saw a hand- a human hand.

"oh…oh God" he pushed away some more of the trash, to reveal a twelve or thirteen year old girl wearing a shirt soaked in blood, vomit and some unknown green glow paint. She was just a kid. "MIKE, I FOUND SOMETHING!" He climbed into the pit to the girl. Her skin was cold to the touch but before he could withdraw his fingers he felt a pulse.

"what…early Christmas sh-" the friendly jibe was cut short "What the- please tell me that ain't a kid"

"Call an ambulance now, she's alive but just barely." The younger man fumbled with a phone while the older one carried the girl to steady ground.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 1

Not In the System

A/N: Thank you so much for all the reviews and alerts. You guys rock. I apologize for taking a little too long on this chapter. My computer broke down for awhile and I had to get it fixed.

"Crime knows no bedtime" Detective Olivia Olivia commented as she got out of the police car. Her partner, Elliott Elliot followed.

"You got that right." Elliot shook his head, "Woke you up too?"

"I got _some_ sleep" Olivia said. She noticed Warner at the scene and waved her over "What have we got?"

"Garbage men found a girl, somewhere between eleven to thirteen years old, in junk pit. She had blood and vomit all over her shirt and a nasty scrape to the head." She indicated the ambulance where a girl was being wheeled in by the paramedics. "She's unresponsive and her temp is dropping fast. They said she only said one thing 'It didn't work, help me'."

"You think it might be a dump job?" Detective Elliot asked.

"Maybe. For now the girl needs medical help, she is seriously sick and paramedics aren't sure what she's got. I would wait until she's stable before talking to her. Right now I think you should check missing persons or any nearby runaway shelters. Her parents might be able to help us find out what's wrong with her. "Warner handed them a photo of the girl, and Olivia gave it a good look.

"Might help if we had a name" she said.

The picture of the injured girl had been clipped to the board in the precinct. The detectives were going through pictures of missing children while waiting to hear from the hospital. Occasionally they found one that was close but either they were already found or had some trait that didn't match.

"No matches to Jane Doe so far." Detective Olivia said, "and that's all of the missing kids between New York and Maine."

"Try New Jersey to Florida." Elliot said, "Someone has got to be looking for this girl." He knew if it were his girl he would be doing anything to find her.

"I'll see what I can do" Olivia went back to her search. In her mind she kept turning over the girl's words in her head. 'It didn't work, help me'. What could 'it' mean? Nothing seemed to turn up. "Hey, El…Warner said the last things she said was 'it didn't work, help me'?"

"Yeah" Elliot looked up, "Got any idea what that meant? An escape attempt, maybe. She could have been running away from her parents or a kidnapper. He found her and beat her up. She looked pretty bad when we found her."

"Could be. Or maybe it had something to do with her health. She got treatment for something and it came back." Olivia looked at the picture, "You don't get that sick out of nowhere." That left the detectives something to think about. It was a strange situation, but they had to piece it together to help her.

The detectives looked for missing children all over the country but nothing came up. Well no solid IDs anyway. There was an interesting report by the Pennsylvania police from a few days ago. They talked to the owner of a fruit stand who reported that a homeless kid had stolen some apples. The kid matched their victims' description exactly.

"Of course I was worried; I mean she was just a little kid on her own. I thought if I made the report her parents might show up" he said.

"What do you mean her hands disappeared?" Elliot had been looking at him strangely ever since he told them what happened.

"It was the freakiest thing. She looked as if she were reaching through the wood, when I caught her, well her hands were gone. Not hurt or anything but just…gone," He shrugged. "When I saw her before she had 'em. Wonder if it was some kind of illusion or circus trick. We've had some weird circus people come through here"

"Did she look sick when you saw her?" Olivia asked.

"Maybe. She was awfully pale and skinny, I just assumed it was because she wasn't eating" he shrugged. "Why? She didn't get hurt did she?"

"She might have. Did you ever find out her name" Elliot hoped that he would have something to identify her on.

"No. She was pretty shy, when we did see her she usually went to hide. But I did find a stash of food she had been keeping. "The man led them over to a spot in the alley covered by a board. When they moved it aside they found a hole in the ground filled with bits of fruit with bruises and plastic cups like the ones stores gave with samples.

"She was living off of scraps" Elliot put on his gloves and picked out a few of the plastic cups. He noticed something at the bottom of the hole. "Wait a second, I think I saw something down there." The detectives dug through the hole until they found a piece of paper. Written in a messy child's scrawl was a phone number.

"(484) 555-1221"

"Wonder what this is" Elliot said. Before he could call that number, they got a call from the hospital. Their victim was out of surgery and awake.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 2: New Leads

A/N: Happy Holidays people! Thanks for the alerts, faves, and reviews! You guys make me feel good when some of my teachers and my folks make me feel like the worst student on Earth (Only when I screw up ;)) . Here's another chapter. I'm trying to format this like a regular hour long episode in bit by bit intervals. Also I made an adjustment to the last chapter because I remembered that I couldn't refer to Dani by name because they don't know her name. Sorry for the confusion.

I've been interested in doing a Law and Order SVU /DP crossover for ages, but I was uneasy about writing something too …well excessively sexual because Danny Phantom is a kid's show. Then I figured I could use Dani, a character I like anyway, and not have to. After all, Dani is a kid and the SVU is usually called in on kid cases. While this story does lean more to the style of Law and Order (the occasional bit of profanity) it doesn't really do anything but take a situation already in DP (the whole Dani and Vlad relationship arc) and look at the full implications of it.

"In all my years of practicing medicine." One of the doctors told Detective Olivia, while outside the room, "I've never seen anything quite like this."

"What do you mean?" Detective Olivia asked, "Do you know what's wrong with her?"

"No. During surgery she crashed and she was out while we tried to figure what was wrong. Her temperature was so low; well most people would have been dead by then. We almost thought was dying but her temp shot up in a few hours and she relatively fine."

"Relatively?" Olivia looked over in the ward where the girl was drinking juice and sketching on a cheap pad of paper. "Do you have any idea what made her sick?"

"We're still not certain, but it looked like her body was reacting badly to something in it. Like it was attacking itself." She placed a clipboard aside. "She's weak but getting better. "

"Did you ever find out her name?" Olivia asked hopefully.

"Just a first a first name." The doctor said, "Danielle. Poor thing's had some terrible nightmares. I hope you can find her parents. " She opened the door and moved to allow Olivia in. The girl looked up slightly wary.

"Who is she?" She asked.

"Hey, I was one of the police officers who found you. My name's Olivia Benson." Olivia started, "its Danielle right?"

"Dani." The girl corrected. Then she added, looking down at the drawing. "Thank you for helping me. "

"You don't have to thank me for that. It's my job. "Olivia sat down on the bed. "But what I want to know is what were you doing out alone?" Dani looked back down at her drawing pad. She was sketching a map of the stars.

"I like being out at night, and seeing the sky." She said, "I'm usually okay, just this time I got sick." She was wary and guarded. Olivia was used to seeing this in victims of child abuse that coupled with the nightmares made her suspect that Dani was hiding something.

"Have you been sick before?" Olivia asked, "The people who found you said that you said, 'help me it didn't work'." Dani looked up for a moment.

"I got really sick once, but it went away. I guess I just got scared that it happened again." She shrugged.

"How long have you been by yourself," Olivia decided to try again, "We went to Pennsylvania and talked to a man there." She looked nervous.

"Is he still mad? Are you going to arrest me?" Looking at the worry on her face Olivia found that she couldn't have arrested her even if she had to. This kid had just nearly died in the hospital. "I know it probably doesn't mean much, but I'm sorry I did it. I was just so hungry and I don't have any money."

"No I'm not arresting you." Detective Olivia said, "But I do want to know what you're doing on your own." Dani looked down biting her lip as if trying to make a decision between two unpleasant choices. "Did you run away from home?"

"No. I don't have one. I ran away from a shelter when I was little..in..in New York I think." She said. "It was getting too crowded. I don't think most of them would know I was there, I just blended in with all the other kids."

"You've been taking care of yourself all this time?" Dani went back to sketching again.

"Yeah, mostly." She shrugged. "I learned how to look out for myself. "

"We found a phone number in the place you stayed last. " Olivia asked, watching the girl carefully for a reaction. She looked up at that about to protest, possibly. "Is that someone close, maybe a relative?"

"That's my –I mean he's a friend who helped me once. He gave me his number in case I ever needed help again." Dani said. "I didn't want to bother him unless I was really in trouble. What's going to happen now?"

"Well we need to find you a good home. " Dani looked upset by that.

"Can't I just find another shelter?" she asked.

"We want to make sure you're taken care of. So if you get sick again, someone can make sure you get a doctor before it gets this bad." Either she was lying to protect an abuser or she's had run into some seriously hard times on the streets. No matter which she still needed help.

"I don't think I'm going to get sick again." Dani said. The detective couldn't help raising her eyebrows at that. Dani's cool confidence was a complete turnaround from the dying girl who begged for help days earlier. "Thanks again by the way."

Dani watched the detective leave and then fell back on her bed in relief. She had been figuratively biting her tongue the entire time so as not to spill anything. She had almost called Danny her cousin, but then they would have investigated that and she would blow Danny's cover. She already gave him enough trouble when he went out of his way to save her, she couldn't do that.

She looked out the window of the hospital. This might mess everything up if she didn't figure out a way to handle it. Who knew what would happen if the police got involved? Dani decided that if she was strong enough to use her powers tomorrow, she would leave.

While Olivia was talking with Dani, Detective Elliot called up the number on the scrap of paper Dani had kept. After several rings he got the answering machine.

"Hello, you've reached Fentonworks. We are not available but we'd like to hear from you. Press 1 for personal reasons and 2 for business.

_And three for ghosts_

JACK!_._ Otherwise wait for the tone. Thank you and have a nice day!"

He was silent for a moment trying to process what he just heard. Did they say ghosts? When the tone sounded he got himself together, and tried to think on the fly, what he was going to say. He eventually hung up deciding to wait for Olivia's word before assuming the Fentons were Danielle's parents or relatives. After all, why would a girl running away from her parents or family keep their number?


End file.
